Following the Thunder's stunning Game 7 exit, the Boston Celtics are suddenly perfectly set up to dominate the decade. With Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown coming of age younger than most stars could ever dream, the team came within a couple of games of making the Finals in 2020, which seemed to be years ahead of schedule, and things only went up from there.
We’re now in season seven of the 2020s, and Boston has made four conference finals, two finals, and raised one banner. No other team can boast a better resume in that span, with the only other team to make multiple Finals being the Heat, who lost both times.
Oklahoma City had a real chance to change that, and seemed destined to do so, but their title defense collapsed in Game 7 against the Spurs, and now we’ll see an eighth new championship in the last eight years, with a Knicks team that hasn’t reached the Finals since 1999 and a Spurs squad that’s back for the first time since 2014.
For most of the season, it felt like the Thunder were going to take over and rattle off a handful of championships, but now, things seem wide open again. Sure, that could become the case for the Spurs or Knicks, but at this point, we should realize that these windows close a lot faster than expected.
Nikola Jokic and SGA are still vying to 'win' the decade
Other players have certainly earned more individual accolades than Tatum or Brown; Nikola Jokic has three MVP awards and a Finals MVP, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has won back-to-back MVPs with a Finals MVP under his belt as well.
But if the Jays are able to bring another title (or more) to Boston, the Celtics would stand out as the team of the decade with Tatum and Brown as the defining players. Neither one of them can stack up with the resume of the elites, but combined, they have 11 All-Star Games, seven All-NBA appearances, two East Finals MVPs, and, of course, the one Finals MVP for JB.
With both players set to be healthy to start next season and squarely in their primes, with revenge on their minds, there’s a real opportunity here for the Jays and the Celtics to bounce back and reestablish themselves as the predominant force in the league for the 2020s.Â
It’s certainly not a sure thing, and there’s no guarantee the Jays will even be together next season, but betting on their track record is about as good a bet as you can make in this modern age of parity and turnover.
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